Damascus bomb kills four

A bomb blast in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus has killed four people and seriously wounded a member of a faction backing Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The explosion late on Thursday in the Yarmouk camp targeted the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

Four people died and a PFLP-GC activist was seriously wounded when the bomb planted under his car went off, the group said. It blamed the rebel Free Syrian Army for the attack.

Yarmouk has been pulled into Syria's fighting before, most recently earlier this month when clashes in and around the camp killed and wounded dozens.

The refugee camp is also close to two southern neighbourhoods of the capital - Tadamon and Hajar Aswad - that have seen weeks-long clashes between rebels and government troops.

Regime forces shelled the two neighbourhoods on Friday and also raided the central Damascus neighbourhood of Bab Sreijeh, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Activists said several people were arrested.

In other violence around the country, Islamic extremists, including members of the al-Qaeda inspired Jabhat al-Nusra group, battled on Friday with pro-government Kurdish gunmen in the northern town of Ras al-Ayan, near the border with Turkey.

The Islamist militants entered the town earlier this month and have since clashed almost daily with the Kurdish gunmen.

The Islamic militants and the Kurdish factions have also added to the complexity of Syria's conflict.

When government forces withdrew from Kurdish areas in northeastern Syria in July, they were quickly replaced by Kurdish fighters from the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD.

The Kurds would battle the rebels when they attacked predominantly Kurdish areas in Syria. The Kurdish group is affiliated with the PKK, rebels fighting for autonomy in the Kurdish-dominated southeast region of Turkey. For its part, Ankara has sheltered and backed Syria's opposition.

As for the Islamic militants, they are fighting on the side of the rebels and have played a bigger role in the Syrian conflict in recent months, with many openly saying they want to set up an Islamic state. The opposition is split, with some groups strongly opposed to extremism.

Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with an uprising against Assad's regime, inspired by other Arab Spring revolts, but quickly morphed into a civil war that has since killed more than 40,000 people, according to activists.

When the unrest began, the country's half-million Palestinians struggled to stay on the sidelines. But in recent months, many have started supporting the uprising although they insisted the opposition to the regime should be peaceful.

Earlier this month, the FPLP-GC clashed with anti-government Palestinian gunmen in Yarmouk.

The Observatory reported that the body of Syrian novelist Mohammed Rashid Roweily was found late on Thursday in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, nearly two months after he was kidnapped.

State-TV said Roweily was "liquidated by terrorists".

Ruwiely, 65, was once the representative of Arab Writers' Union in Deir el-Zour and had written several novels. The Observatory said his decomposed body was found along with four other bodies, including that of a retired army officer. All were kidnapped around the same time.

This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.